Car Acrobatic Team

The Car Acrobatic Team is a group of, as their name implies, automobile acrobats, as well as skilled racers. They are a recurring villainous organization in the original Speed Racer anime.

Organization traits

The Acrobatic Team is headed by Captain Terror, and their only other truly notable member is the cocky Snake Oiler. Though they seem outwardly innocent, they have darker sides; in addition to being extremely rude and thinking highly of themselves and vengeance, they secretly seem to be some sort of cult, holding strange rituals in the night and believing they can harness the powers of the forces of nature.

The Car Acrobatic Team first appears in the Speed Racer story arc "The Most Dangerous Race" (consisting of The Most Dangerous Race (Part 1), The Most Dangerous Race (Part 2), and The Most Dangerous Race (Part 3)). Here, they send seven elite racers (among which is Snake Oiler) to compete in the Alpine Race, and all are assumed dead due to poor handling of the lethal layout of the race's course, and not appearing later. Though it never actually says for sure, it is most likely that Snake Oiler died after his car exploded due to an oil leak. His dying words were "We'll get revenge." After this, the team becomes ravenous for revenge of their defeat at Speed Racer's hands and appear in handfuls of other episodes as villains. Snake appears once in the episode "The Trick Race", while Captain Terror addresses them, revealing his plans for revenge against Speed. However, this was most likely a flashback in the Japanese version of Mach GoGoGo.